Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2020 i T3

LONGINES HERITAGE CLASSIC TUXEDO The new Tuxedo creations are inspired by two historic Longines pieces from the elegant and stylish 1940s. Now fully modernised, but with the same design flair as the originals. £1,480, longines.com TAG HEUER, 160 YEARS MONTREAL LIMITED EDITION Tag Heuer is celebrating its 160th birthday by reimagining the iconic Heuer Montreal from 1972. Using the same white, blue, red and yellow colour palette, but featuring a modern Calibre Heuer 01. £5,550, tagheuer.com HAMILTON, KHAKI NAVY BELOWZERO Cased in lightweight titanium, this features a blue- or red-tipped second hand (referencing the key colours in the movie, Tenet). It comes in packaging made by production designer Nathan Crowley. £1,890, hamiltonwatch.com NOMOS GLASHÜTTE TETRA IMMORTAL BELOVED Looking to treat someone special? This new Tetra is hand-crafted in Germany, with…

Let there be (smart) light: this is one of those smart home upgrades where once you’ve made the jump, going back feels like returning to the dark ages… almost literally, in this case. Getting up to physically push a switch feels almost antiquated. With smart lights, you can turn lights on and off with a tap or a voice command, of course, but you can also get them to light up or go dark based on a schedule for extra convenience. Brightness and colour can be adjusted with a button press or with an automated routine, and if you really want to invest in a smart light future, you can even have your lighting change in time to music or the movie you’re watching. As one of the first parts…

Smart home kit functionality can extend a lot further than you might have thought – these intelligent gadgets are able to heat up your home, cool down your home, and even improve the air quality on demand, as this top-tier selection of smart home products demonstrates. Thermostats were one of the first home appliances to ‘go smart’, and it’s easy to see why: you can’t beat being able to start warming up rooms while you’re still in bed or on the way home from work. Today’s smart thermostats are cleverer than ever, able to learn from your previous habits to automatically turn your heating on or off when needed (they can even tell whether anyone is at home or not). Fans are a bit more straightforward, with the standard on…

Lights, colours, action! The cheapest 2020 QLED TV to offer a full-array backlight, the Q80T offers all the familiar attributes of Samsung’s QLED models. It’s natively bright and wondrously colour rich. It also produces a convincing black level performance, thanks to its full array backlight with local dimming. Samsung won’t confirm how many zones there are on this set, but we strongly suspect there’s around 50, comparable to last year’s Q70R. This isn’t enough to completely control backlight blooming, and we noticed some splodges of light from bright objects on black backgrounds. Last year’s Q80R model performed more strongly in this area – with that model currently selling for around £1,000 less than this version, it’s a shame that the backlight dimming performance isn’t a bit stronger. But if the…

From £379 oneplus.com Mid-range handsets are having a moment as the smartphone market matures: decent-quality screens, chipsets and camera lenses are getting cheaper all the time, which means you can get a lot more for your money, and it’s becoming harder and harder to justify spending four-figure sums on top-end flagships. If you can buy a phone that’s almost as fast and takes photos that are almost as good as the very best handsets for half the price, why wouldn’t you? This was the thinking behind the Google Pixel 3a and the Samsung Galaxy S10e last year, and the second-gen iPhone SE this year, and it’s also the thinking behind the OnePlus Nord. While the OnePlus flagships aren’t going anywhere (and we might see another before the year is out),…

JOSH RUSSELL Editor JO GULLIVER Group Art Director ROBERT JONES Ecommerce Editor MATT KOLLAT Staff Writer MICHELLE McLAREN Art Editor PAUL DOUGLAS Content Director DUNCAN BELL Lifestyle Editor MATT EVANS Staff Writer RUSSELL LEWIN Production Editor MATT BOLTON Home Tech Editor SPENCER HART Product & Style Editor RUTH HAMILTON Outdoor & Wellness Editor MEET OUR ADVERTISING TEAM Get in touch to see what T3 can do for your brand! UK COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR CLARE DOVE clare.dove@futurenet.com +44 (0)7432 442244 ACCOUNT DIRECTOR ANDREW TILBURY andrew.tilbury@futurenet.com, +44 (0)1225 687144 ACCOUNT MANAGER ISABEL LINCOLN-MOORE isabel.lincoln-moore@futurenet.com, +44 (0)1225 442244 SENIOR AD MANAGER SASHA McGREGOR sasha.mcgregor@futurenet.com, +44 (0)1225 442244 THE GLOBAL MAGAZINE T3 is currently licensed worldwide, from Australia to Mexico POLAND FRANCE HOW TO LICENSE T3 Interested in publishing a licensed version of T3 in…

REIMA XYLITOL COOL KIDS’ T-SHIRT These ingenious children’s T-shirts are treated with Xylitol Cool – a finish which gives the material a cooling effect during periods of physical activity. They’re moisture-wicking and quickdrying too. £20.60, reima.com FATBOY MIASUN BEACH TENT Heading to the beach but keen to avoid the lobster look? Ditch unwieldy parasols and slip this ingenious beach tent into your bag, instead. There’s room for two adults and two children under this crafty lightweight canopy, which weighs just 1.2kg and folds up into an A4 envelopesized pouch. £99, madeindesign.co.uk HUMI Say hello to the Humi – a compact fan that is ideal for holidays. It’s ultra-quiet and also works as a heater, humidifier and hand warmer, making it ideal for the odd inevitable cold-weather day. £29.99, highstreettv.com…

Originally created for swimrun endurance sports, the Tempest (£170, vivobarefoot.com) is the first shoe in Vivobarefoot’s new Extreme Survival Collection (ESC). The Tempest is a trail running shoe and features a lace locking system, quickdraining mesh and recycled plastic PET ankle sock construction, bio-based Bloom EVA midsole and a rubber outsole developed in collaboration with Michelin. The pattern of the sole mimics natural growth patterns found in oceanic ‘brain coral’ structures. True to the Vivobarefoot minimalist design ethos, this structure uses as few materials as possible to maximise performance, durability, quality and that signature Vivobarefoot feel.…

Kitting out your home with some surveillance equipment is no longer the expensive, involved job that it once was – these affordable, easy-to-use, compact cameras will very happily keep an eye on your property, your pets and your kids while you’re away from home (or just upstairs). They all come with the same basic functionality, which is to ping your phone if motion is detected in front of the camera. On top of that, these cameras add all kinds of additional features, including two-way audio (for putting off dodgy characters or admonishing naughty pets), night vision, people recognition (so a person triggers an alert but a passing car doesn’t), as well as sirens and spotlights if you need them. The majority of cameras on the market come with the option…

Smart home tech continues to get more affordable and more capable all the time, as manufacturers get better at packing more features into gadgets that get smaller and smaller – as you can see on page 27. Helped by products like dinky smart speakers and boilers with smart thermostats attached, the smart home market is now a vibrant, quickly evolving one. Home security cameras are a good example of this trend as well. Not too long ago, getting your home under 24-7 surveillance would’ve required a team of professional installers, copious amounts of wiring, and hundreds of pounds of expensive kit – but nowadays, you can do the same job with a couple of inexpensive wireless cameras, and get everything set up yourself in just a few minutes. Even better,…

When you’re picking out a new bit of kit to add to your smart home setup it’s a good idea to make sure it works with everything else you’ve already got in place. For your smart home to work properly, all the different pieces that make it up need to be happy talking together, otherwise you can easily get buried in a pile of separate apps and competing standards. For example, look for hardware that’s compatible with the Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant digital assistant apps. Not only does this mean you’ll be able to use voice commands (eg, “turn off the bedroom lights”) to get your smart home in order, it also means you’ll be able to operate all your gadgets through the Alexa or Assistant apps. If you’ve…

The cheapest TV in our test, the Sony XH9505 is eminently affordable, with the 65-inch set coming in a cool £800 less than the LG CX. That price starts to look better and better as you run down this TV’s feature list. For starters, its LCD panel is direct lit, and separate zones of its LEDs can output different levels of light during any given shot, which always contributes to superior contrast. And while 60 separate dimming zones isn’t a huge amount, it’s not just the number that counts; it’s what you do with them. In most ways, the pictures produced are pretty glorious. They’re extremely bright: its peaks of just over 1,000 nits in Standard mode and around 980 nits in Cinema mode sit at the higher end of…

LG CX From £1,499, lg.com WE’RE IMPRESSED Gorgeous picture quality, thrilling gaming features and affordability (by OLED standards) make this an eminently appealing 4K set. WE’D IMPROVE It struggles with bass. Also, the lack of HDR10+ support and potential for image retention aren’t ideal. THE LAST WORD The LG CX’s combination of exquisite pictures, cinematic nuance and all-round solid features at a comparatively low price make it LG’s most irresistible OLED TV yet – and, indeed, the most tempting in its bracket. However, its problems handling the bass parts of big movie soundtracks may force you to add a soundbar. 1st SONY XH9505 £1,199, sony.co.uk 2nd WE’RE IMPRESSED Extremely punchy HDR pictures, dynamic sound and decent value. WE’D IMPROVE No HDR10+, lacks some gaming features and backlight blooming issues. THE…

£1,750 bang-olufsen.com Being Bang & Olufsen, the Beosound Balance clearly isn’t after the Echo Dot’s end of the smart speaker market; this aims to be the best smart speaker for music out there. However, the fact it costs not far off 10 times what most of its rivals do means it will have to gun very damn hard to justify someone choosing it over them. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the Beosound Balance sounds fantastic. As you would hope given the price, it is the bestsounding smart speaker so far, though not by much of a margin. Before we discuss the sound in detail, we need to say the audio profile can be shifted pretty drastically. Not only are there treble and bass adjustment options and presets…

£239.99 microsoft.com The original Surface Headphones were brilliant pure noise-cancellers – but they cost a stonking £329 a pair. Their unhappy grey finish didn’t help, either. But now they’re back in black – sounding better and costing less. In terms of sound, they’re much more forgiving of a standard Spotify stream now. Bass frequencies have much more solidity about them, so the bottom end is much punchier, but at the same time it’s better controlled – there’s no more swamping of singers by bass that’s overstayed its welcome. It’s really only up in the higher frequencies that they’re anything less than confident. There’s not quite the bite or the shine to treble sounds that there really should be – mind you, it’s more sensible than the hardness and brilliance some…

JAGUAR I-PACE Thought you’d never get to enjoy the ruggedness of an SUV, the efficiency of an electric vehicle and the luxury of a premium motor all in one car? Well thanks to Jaguar, you can. This update to 2019’s I-Pace delivers serious performance for an electric car, accelerating 0-60mph in just 4.5 seconds and travelling up to 292 miles on a single charge. But where it really shines is all the tech Jaguar has added to make your journey silky smooth. Its new self-learning infotainment system can point out the location and cost of charging stations, optimise its own routes and mute voice guidance when you’re in familiar neighbourhoods. Not only that, the I-Pace has a 3D surround camera system and air purification as standard, with the option of…

If there’s one thing the last six months has made me realise, it’s how much more connected our homes are these days. Don’t get me wrong: lockdown did see my already rusty conversational skills corrode into linguistic dust. And there was that one weekend I went feral and had to be lured out of hiding with a trail of fried halloumi nuggets. But all in all, the most surprising thing about it all is how the world didn’t feel that much further away. While lockdown still hasn’t been easy, the technology in our homes has kept us closer than many of us thought possible, not only allowing us to stay in contact but join each other for drinks, check out livestreamed gigs and standup and discover that, literally, everything is…

CRAFT CADENCE The Cadence backpack is as waterproof as it gets. Inside the bag, you’ll find a removable inner with a dedicated laptop compartment and two zip handy mesh pockets. £79.99, craftcadence.com CHROME INDUSTRIES BLCKCHRM 22X YALTA 3.0 The Yalta 3.0 has 26 litres of organising space and a removable inner that doubles up as a tote bag if needed. Plus: padded shoulder straps! £160, chromeindustries.com ALBAN ROLL TOP BACKPACK The Alban Roll Top Backpack has been constructed from a technical marine-grade 1100D nylon and is durable as well as being waterproof. It’s also deceptively spacious. £105, albanbikebags.com…

The humble smart plug may not attract the same kind of attention as other smart home kit, but don’t underestimate the usefulness of having a plug socket that you can turn on or off as needed, right from your phone (or on a timed schedule) – basically, it lets you add smarts to all kinds of other electrical appliances. Those appliances could be lamps, for example, or fans in a room. Add a smart plug to the mix and all of a sudden you can turn them on and off from the other side of the house. Perhaps more practically, you could start up a kettle or a slow cooker while you’re en route home from work (or still in bed). The more you get used to what smart plugs…

To complete the smart security picture and give yourself proper peace of mind, you need to turn your attention to your front door – seeing what’s in front of it and controlling access through it. That’s where a carefully chosen video doorbell or smart lock can come in, and you shouldn’t have too much trouble tying it into the rest of your smart home. Smart video doorbells work very much like smart video cameras, alerting you when someone’s at the door and giving you access to a live feed right on your phone – no more waiting until you’ve got downstairs to find out who’s calling, in other words. Using two-way audio, you can answer the door from wherever you are in the world, telling delivery drivers to use a…

PETSAFE DRINKWELL PET FOUNTAIN Make sure your pets are well watered throughout the day with this fountain: it’s easy to use and top up, it’s easy to clean (you can take it apart fairly easily), and you can customise how the water is dispensed. £67, petsafe.net WHISTLE GO EXPLORE You may have given up on the Fitbit you once strapped to your wrist, but that doesn’t mean your pet has to – the Whistle Go Explore tells you where your pet is and keeps track of its habits and activity as well. £121, whistle.com ZENES BUTTERFLY TOY You can keep your cat entertained for hours with this – so we’re reliably informed – giving you another option for occupying your pets. You get two toys included, and the device runs…

All OLED TVs are in the ‘not-cheap’ end of the TV spectrum, but LG’s trick has been to offer every ounce of picture perfection that it can for a truly reasonable price overall. The LG CX continues this trend, delivering subtle but compelling picture-quality improvements on anything LG OLEDs have delivered before. Which is really saying something. LG seems to have worked very hard on the balance between achieving truly inky blacks and retaining shadow detail. So black levels look slightly deeper than they did on the C9, while shadow detailing is significantly more satisfying than it was on last year’s B9. Dark scenes thus look much more consistently natural and immersive. Its colour performance also improves on that of the C9. Vivid hues such as blue skies and green…

01 GO BIG AND STAY HOME As we move from HD to 4K, screen size becomes a key consideration. To see incremental differences in resolution, you’ll probably need to buy a bigger screen than you had previously, or move your seating closer. Long story short: think big, then buy bigger. 02 THE NOT-SO-DISTANT FUTURE Counter intuitive it may well be, but ultra-large screens are perfect for smaller rooms, if you want to really see every drop of detail. Everything you think you know about viewing distances is changing… 03 STRIKING THE LIGHT BALANCE Then there’s viewing environment. If you tend to watch in high ambient lighting, or during daytime, an LED or QLED screen will typically tend to serve you better. If you prefer to view with low or no…

From £1,099 sony.co.uk The Xperia 1 II shows Sony unafraid to continue its baffling mobile phone naming strategy of the last few years – this is technically the successor to last year’s Xperia 1, and continues with a lot of the same themes. Those themes include strong showings in terms of the display and the camera, as you would expect from a company that also makes TVs and DSLRs. The 6.5-inch, 1644 x 3840 pixel resolution OLED display we’ve got here is a joy to use. Details look razor sharp, colours look perfectly balanced, and you’re certainly not going to be disappointed when viewing videos. As for the rest of the design, Sony sticks to its familiar approach: this is a business-like glass slab of a phone, very much moulded…